Original Persian Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Sāḳīyā vaḳt-i ṣabūḥest ü mey ü ‘ayş ü nedīm
Müjde-i vuṣlat-ı cānān-ı men āverd nesīm
Yār-ı dīrīne-i ḫod-rā koned er yād ġamet
Der-miyān-ı men ü ū hest belī ‘ahd-i ḳadīm
Dil zi-men kerd sefer bāz ne-y-āmed ḫabereş
Tā ḫayāl-i to ki der-ḫāne-i dil geşt muḳīm
Cānem ez-ġamze-i cādūy-ı to şod zār u nizār
Dil şod ez-nergis-i maḫmūr-ı to bīmār u saḳīm
Ḫūn-ı dil ḫorden-i men der-ser-i ān kūy Münīr
Bih ki der-ravża-i rıḍvān şevem ü nāz-ı na‘īm

In English

1. O cupbearer, it is the time of the morning draught, of wine, of pleasure and of the boon companion; the dawn breeze has brought the good news of union with the beloved of my soul. ("Ṣabūḥ", in its dictionary sense, is wine drunk in the morning.)

2. If grief for you remembers its old friend, it is no wonder; yes, between me and it there is an ancient covenant.

3. Since your image took up its dwelling in the house of the heart, the heart has left me and set out on a journey; no news of it has come back since.

4. My soul has moaned and wasted away from your sorcerous sidelong glance; my heart has grown sick and ailing from your languid narcissus. (The languid narcissus is the eye that looks drowsy and faint.)

5. O Münîr, drinking the blood of the heart at the head of that quarter is better for me than being in the garden of Rıdvan and living amid the delights of paradise. (Rıdvan is the angel who guards paradise; "ravża-i Rıḍvān" means the garden of paradise. In the Vienna manuscript "şevem nāz u" is read instead of "şevem ü nāz-ı"; since one letter could not be printed in the edition's record, the word has been completed from the text.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet ghazal (gazel) written in Persian; in the edition it is the hundred and first of the Persian ghazals (fg 101). The metre is "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif) and does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains. The rhyme is the sound "-īm": nedīm, nesīm, ḳadīm, muḳīm, saḳīm, na‘īm. Ersoy counts this ghazal among his examples of kafiye-i müreddefe (rhyme with a long vowel before the rhyme letter). The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 86a) and Vienna (VY 68b) manuscripts. According to Ersoy's apparatus, the Vienna manuscript shows a small variant reading in the second line of the last couplet. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is the summons of a morning gathering. The dawn breeze has brought the news of union; now it is the time of the morning draught, of pleasure and of friendly converse. The words "ṣabūḥ", "mey", "‘ayş" and "nedīm" set up a congruence of images (tenasüp) around the gathering; that the bearer of the news is the dawn breeze also rests on the image, in divan poetry, of the wind that carries news between lover and beloved.

In the second couplet grief is the lover's old friend. Personifying grief is the figure of personification (teşhis); there is a covenant of long standing between the lover and grief, and so it is not surprising that grief should remember him. "Yār-ı dīrīne" (old friend) and "‘ahd-i ḳadīm" (ancient covenant) strengthen the couplet by saying the same thought twice. There is also a contrast between the joyful news of the opening couplet and the grief of this couplet.

The third couplet is built on the image of home and journey. The beloved's image has settled in the house of the heart and become "muḳīm" (resident); the heart, by contrast, has made a "sefer", that is, set out on a journey. The contrast between "muḳīm" (settled) and "sefer" (journey) expresses the heart leaving its own home to the image and departing. That the heart never again sends news suggests that it too has gone after the beloved. The fourth couplet describes the sorcerous glance and the languid eye; the paired expressions "zār u nizār" and "bīmār u saḳīm" strengthen through repetition of sound the point that soul and heart have caught the same illness. In divan poetry the beloved's faint eye is called sick and passes its sickness on to the lover.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) compares paradise with the beloved's quarter. Drinking the blood of the heart at the beloved's door is above living among the delights of paradise. There is a plain contrast between "ḫūn-ı dil ḫorden" (drinking the heart's blood, that is, suffering) and "nāz-ı na‘īm" (the delights of the bliss of paradise).

Bibliography

Online sources